


hells bells

by Rebldomakr



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Billy lives, Post-Stranger Things 3, Superhuman Billy Hargrove, billy is getting better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 00:25:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19779526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rebldomakr/pseuds/Rebldomakr
Summary: Billy thinks about his gun, thinks about the bullet in his brain, thinks about the mom Susan is trying be, thinks about himself.





	hells bells

**Author's Note:**

> unbetaed

Billy’s got a gun underneath his pillow. It’s an old revolver that belonged to his grandfather. He has a small pack of old bullets. He doesn’t know a lot about guns. He doesn’t even know if the bullets will still work or if he should be doing anything to maintain the gun. Just keeps it underneath his pillow, loaded, with the decaying paper box holding dusty bullets hidden in a trunk under his bed.

“Take good care of it,” His grandfather had told him when he slid the gun across the wobbly, cherry kitchen table. “I got it when I was a young man, when your father was born.” He didn’t say he knows what Neil does, sometimes, to Billy’s mom or to Billy himself. Just told him, “Use it to protect your mother. She’s a good one.” Like his grandfather knew what he had raised, but he still loved Neil even if he thought the world of Billy’s mom.

Doreen Hargrove stopped smiling when Billy turned nine. A year later, with a black eye and a split lip, Doreen Hargrove became Doreen McCoy. She had left three months earlier with a man of money, the kind of man she had thought Neil could be before she realized that Neil left Vietnam, but Vietnam didn’t really ever leave him. She called Billy once a week, before she stopped calling altogether. Every other holiday and birthday, he’d get a card with a couple of bills stuffed inside.

Billy still has the gun. It doesn’t have anything worth protecting anymore.

He sits on the edge of his bed. School starts back up in a week. Those government doctors pretend to act like he still has injuries to heal from because he should, only he doesn’t. His dad doesn’t pay enough attention to him to know. He doubts Neil actually read the reports the doctors came up with for him. Why he lived, but none of the others did.

Over thirty people. But, Billy, alive.

He doesn’t know why he is.

School is in a week. Susan took Billy and Max school shopping in a mall the town over. She bought Billy a little diamond earring.

“Don’t tell your dad.” She says softly. “I saw you eyeing one like this back in California. I’ve been saving for a while, but it took some time.”

She smiles at him like she doesn’t turn her head when Neil raises his hand. She smiles at him like his mom did, once. Like, Susan smiles – she smiles like Billy’s her own.

It makes Billy’s chest ache.

How many years has Susan been with Neil? How many parent-teacher conferences has she been to, for him? How many times did she pack him a lunch? How many times did she help him do his hair, before he finally mastered the skill of hairspray and a comb?

He wonders if his mom would’ve helped him, like Susan has. Sometimes.

Billy stands up.

There’s noise in the hallway, but his door is closed.

Well, it’s closed until it swings open. Max throws herself inside of his room.

“I could’ve been jacking off.” Billy tells her, scowling.

Max just rolls her eyes. “Whatever, man. Neil’s working late, so mom’s taking us out to dinner.” She doesn’t ask if Billy wants to go. Just looks at him, airy little girl smile.

“Then close the goddamn door so I can change, unless you want to see my dick, you little creep.” Billy snaps. It doesn’t even have any of the venom that he used to give. She even smiles at him, giggle-laughing while she slams the door shut.

He doesn’t know what he did to change their relationship. He doesn’t know why he can’t be mean, like he always used to be.

Like all the venom got sapped out of him when that weird monster thing sunk inside of him. He knows the others didn’t experience it like he did.

_“Your body is perfect. So strong. Be good, be good, and I’ll let you live.”_

Billy disobeyed at the end.

Still, he lives.

He was missing a chunk of his heart for a week, but he was up in an hour. Stumbling around, barely able to stand straight. A rib punctured his lungs, but the x-rays showed the rib was back where it should be – or at least, something new had grown in. God knows what happened to the original.

Billy gets dressed. He changes out of shorts into jeans, pulls on a white shirt, grabs a jacket from a hanger in his closet. He doesn’t need his keys, but he grabs them anyway. Stuffs them into his pocket. Finds his pack of cigarettes and his lighter, puts them into a pocket, too.

He pauses at the door and glances back at the gun sitting on his pillow. He should hide it, again, something. He pulled it out without even thinking about it. He thinks he’ll test what a bullet feels like after dinner. He’s hungry.

Susan takes them out to a diner on the edge of town. It used to be owned by somebody else, but it just reopened. A waitress that looks vaguely familiar, like Billy held her face down in someone’s else’s bed during a party at some rich small-town kid’s house, smiles real pretty at Billy and blushes when he orders a burger.

“God, you’re so gross.” Max complains when the waitress walks away and Billy’s eyes slide down to her ass.

“Honey,” Susan speaks up, looking at her daughter with a soft smile. “Didn’t you do the same thing to a boy the other day? What was his name-?”

“Mom!” Max yelps. “Oh my God! You don’t need to let Billy hear that!”

Billy rolls his eyes. He doesn’t care if Max bangs every guy in town. He might if someone calls her a slut, or something, because he doesn’t need that shit getting back to Neil. Doesn’t need to see Max try to pretend that title is something to be proud of.

“Well, well, Maxine, someone’s flourishing.” Billy drawls. “Next thing I know, you’re going to get your hair down like Nancy Wheeler.”

“Ugh, no way!”

They continue to uselessly bicker while Susan looks fondly at them. Billy sees her face when he dares to glance out of the corner of his eyes. He hates it. She doesn’t look anything like his mom, too red haired and too timid to be Doreen Hargrove – or McCoy, whatever – but. It’s that face, he’s seen on a million moms when they look at their kids.

Billy isn’t hers.

He wonders if she’s started to forget that.

Billy’s burger looks like it’s a pound of ground beef pounded into a patty, topped with lettuce and tomato and extra pickle chips. He squirts ketchup onto his plate and dips it. It feels like he has to unhinge his jaw to get in his first bite. It’s amazing.

After dinner, Susan promises to take them out again. Billy pushes Max and snickers when she falls off the curb, laughing even louder when she nearly falls on her face. She charges at him and tries to knock him over, but he just holds his hand out and keeps her an arm’s length away.

“Stop playing around.” Susan chastises. “Come on, you two, get in the car.”

Billy hops in the passenger seat and sticks his tongue out at Max, who had gotten it on the way over.

He’s buckling in because Susan told him to when he hears Steve Harrington’s voice.

Steve Harrington. Billy wonders what that mouth would look stretched around something bigger than a Popsicle. He turns his head, feigning nonchalance, when he finally sees Steve. Steve, trailing behind an older couple talking softly between each other. He looks like he wants to be anywhere but there, when the woman turns her head. She looks like she’s scolding Steve. Steve sighs and begins to tuck in his shirt.

Cute, Billy thinks.

He stretches out and yawns.

“Are you tired?” Susan asks.

Billy forces himself to look away. They’re pulling away, anyway. He shouldn’t be staring. He doesn’t need to get caught.

“Yeah.” He says.

“Your earring looks nice on you.” Susan says. “You know, I heard the new movie theater opens tomorrow. Why don’t all three of us go see something?”

“What about dad?” Billy asks.

“Oh, you know he isn’t into that stuff.” Susan smiles. “It’ll be fun, for us three.”

He thinks she’s gotten too comfortable. Dad hasn’t hit her, ever, and he doesn’t know why when his mom seemed to always carrying around something. Mom always gave back what she got, though, whether it was a plate or a set of keys.

“We should!” Max yells from the backseat.

“Sounds fun.” Billy gives in.

Susan’s smile gets bigger.

**Author's Note:**

> a drabble made out of an idea that I don't think I'm ever going to actually write. but, anyways, billy lives behind he kept a crazy regenerative feature and some other weird shit he hasn't figured out yet. he goes back to his family.
> 
> also? in the show, it seemed like susan came into billy's life when he was still young. stepparents do often become rather close with their stepchildren, even if the stepchildren are resistant and older. i think susan might care about billy, but won't stand up to neil. maybe not as much as she cares for her own child, max, but i think it could be there. stranger things 3 really opened me up to a soft billy who just becomes better?? kind of anyways. for once, i even explored a positive side in billy's relationship with max.


End file.
